Zong Qinghou Quotes

I've lived in poverty.

When I started, I had nothing. Because my family was really, really, really poor.

I grew up on Section 8 housing, food stamps, welfare, and dealing with social services. I never had a Christmas. I never had a birthday.

We had to leave Norway and go where it was all happening, which was London. We loved it there, but it was hard. We had no money - we were literally starving. It started to get ugly.

The hard part that I had to go through in life, period, is living in poverty and not being able to get what I want.

I came from poverty and was part of those circumstances.

Poverty was the greatest motivating factor in my life.

There's a real sense of desperation when you grow up in poverty.

It's really hard to be poor in New York - I was really poor when I lived in New York.

I grew up poor.

A lot of people don't know what it's like to actually be hungry. I do. I've also slept on the streets.

I know what poverty is.

I wasn't born with a golden spoon in my mouth. It was a really tough life.

Show me a man with very little money and I will show you a bum.

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

After you've cut back everything else, food is the last to go. I didn't mind putting an extra jumper on if I had food in the fridge. It was the point where I had an extra jumper on and no food in the fridge that I realised things had gone badly wrong.

There were times when I couldn't even buy a loaf of bread.

You cannot understand what it means to be poor until you have suffered it.

I know what it's like to be hungry. I know what it's like to be homeless. I know what it's like to have to choose between breaking the law and feeding yourself. I know what it's like to take meals at shelters and at Salvation Army facilities. I know what it's like to beg for money on the streets.

When I was a kid out here in L.A., I was homeless, I didn't have any money and I was living in my car. I wasn't averse to going down to Santa Monica Boulevard and letting a guy buy me a sandwich. Know what I mean?

Luckily, I didn't get too beaten up before someone gave me a shot, but there were times when I was living on friends' couches and eating five-dollar subs from Subway almost every meal.

I was having trouble making ends meet, and my beginnings weren't meeting either.

Poverty of course is no disgrace, but it is damned annoying.

I came from nothing. We didn't have money, so I started work at 14 because I really needed the money.

The time after college and before music was really rough. I couldn't afford food. I was eating bread and butter for five months. Living in New Orleans, I couldn't afford to take care of myself. I had no health insurance.